


if there's blood on my face it's the way that we all go

by sparxwrites



Series: Ivory [1]
Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Angst, Blood, Delusions, M/M, Mercy Killing, Sacrifice, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-28
Updated: 2015-02-28
Packaged: 2018-03-15 16:08:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3453506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparxwrites/pseuds/sparxwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You understand why I have to do this, don’t you?” Parvis sighs, rubs a thumb across Will’s cheek and feels it catch on the scars. Will’s covered in them, nowadays – first from the blood magic, and then from the increasingly frequent accidents that came with his weakness, his clumsiness, his exhaustion. “Don’t you, Strife? Tell me you understand.”</p><p>(In which Strife and Parvis' partnership reaches an inevitable conclusion, and Parvis' tenuous grip on reality fractures.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	if there's blood on my face it's the way that we all go

**Author's Note:**

> so a while ago, kirinparvillain and i had a chat about parvis and strife and how that particular partnership could so easily and wonderfully end in terribleness. and this is the result. title taken from "ivory" by adam french, which i'd highly suggest listening to while reading this.
> 
>  **warnings** for major character death, illness/neglect, abuse, murder, blood, unhealthy relationships, and delusions/detachment from reality/broken moral compass. it's not nice, guys.

“You understand why I have to do this, don’t you?” Parvis sighs, rubs a thumb across Will’s cheek and feels it catch on the scars. Will’s covered in them, nowadays – first from the blood magic, and then from the increasingly frequent accidents that came with his weakness, his clumsiness, his exhaustion. “Don’t you, Strife? Tell me you understand.”

One of Will’s eyelids flutters open, gaze hazy and unfocused. His eye wanders, starts on Parvis’ face and tracks slowly sideways across the empty space of the rest of the altar room. Parvis has to wonder if he even knows where he is, if he’s so lost in whatever alternate world he’s seeing that he doesn’t know what’s going on.

Parvis grips Will’s face in bloody hands, cups them around his head and presses fingers into his skull and resists the urge to shake. “You’re so broken,” he mumbles, sadly, leans down to pepper Will’s cheeks and lips with gentle, butterfly kisses. “So broken and so worn out. I have to put you down. You understand, right? _Tell me you understand!”_

He does shake Will, then, rattles the limp body against the blood altar and listens to the brittle noise it makes, to Will’s breathless moans of pain. “You have to understand, Strifey, you have to!” He bends down to press his lips to Will’s again, longer this time, closes his eyes at the cracked-paper feel of them beneath his. “...Please tell me you forgive- you understand.”

The soft, laboured rasp of Will’s breathing is louder than his voice when he whispers, “…’rstand…” with heavy lips and wandering eyes.

“There,” says Parvis, gently, voice shaky with relief. “There, that’s better. So much better.” He cards fingers through Strife’s hair, still short-cropped despite the steady deterioration of the rest of him, and smiles. “I’m going to miss you, you know. You’ve been so _good_ to me, Strife.”

“Parv’s…” mumbles Strife, forces both eyes open a little wider and grabbing weakly at Parvis’ shirt. His arm refuses to cooperate the first time, and he misses, has to grab again and again until he finally catches fabric and tugs. “Don’- no wan- this’s no-” The effort exhausts him and he breaks off, panting, eyelids fluttering.

Parvis is there in an instant, catching his hand and carefully prying the fingers from his sleeve, shushing soothingly and petting a hand through Strife’s hair. “It’s okay,” he says, quiet and bright and brilliant. “It’s okay now. I’m going to look after you.” He doesn’t move his hand until Strife finally stops gasping so loudly, stops trembling so violently under his fingers.

“Don’t worry, Strifey,” he murmurs, reaching for the knife laid out on the side of the blood altar and curling a hand around its battered, rust-coloured hilt. “I’ll make it nice and quick. Just for you.” He leans down to kiss Strife, slow and gentle against those thin, fragile lips, and presses the blade to his throat. “Just like putting you to sleep.”

Strife struggles, then, as Parvis knew he would – twists as best he can, arches his back, lashes out at Parvis’ face and hair and shoulders. He’s weak, though, so weak it feels like little more than butterfly wings, and Parvis ignores him easily.

“Shh,” he whispers, soft and gentle and full of love. “Shh, Strife, shh. It’s okay now. I’m going to take care of you.” He peppers Strife’s face with small kisses, along his nose and jaw and temples, tries to calm him with warmth and contact. “It’s okay now, I _promise_.”

The knife drags easily across Strife’s throat, cuts deep and effortless. The blood comes pouring out.

There’s so _much_ of it, spilling over Parvis’ hands where he cradles the back of Strife’s neck and kisses him gently, gently through his struggles. “There we go,” he murmurs, as the weak thrashing eases, slows, stops. He drags bloodstained hands through Strife’s hair as the blood drains out of him into the altar, and kisses the corner of his trembling mouth with impossible tenderness. Something aches deep within his chest “There, there. Shh. It’s all okay now.”

Just before the light leaves Strife’s eyes, Parvis could swear he looks almost relieved.


End file.
